Must take net damage vs prevent net damage

Question

If a runner hits a shi.kyu can the runner use guru davinder to prevent the damage and both effects?

1. Can the runner decide to take the net damage and then prevent the net damage with guru davinder?

or

2. If the runner does number 1, does that satisfy the "OR" condition and the effect is finished? Or does the runner have to add the asset to their score area now, since they did not take the net damage?

The confusion is that shi.kyu says "MUST take". Which implies, unless they take the netdamage one of the conditions has to be met. So the runner would be forced to do the second condition.

Answer 1

Firstly, any damage that doesn't have "cannot be prevented" can be prevented.

Secondly, if you choose to take damage instead of adding Shi.Kyu to your score area, it doesn't go to your score area, even if you prevented some/all of that damage.

So yes, it's a valid play to choose taking damage, have it prevented with guru davinder (or any other damage preventer, this is not relevant part), and don't take Shi.Kyu. There already is similar ruling regarding Wotan's last two subroutines and Data Raven's encounter ability Wotan and Raven ruling.

A curious person can find different ruling on seemingly similar case Snatch and Grab ruling. The difference is that S&G is worded "do X to Y". "To" implies [cost:effect] relations, and as such preventing the cost from being paid prevents the effect from happening. Discussion on this case is here: BGG forum

To sum it up, here is a great excerpt from BGG post by CommissarFeesh:

In short though; Data Raven gives you the choice of x (take a tag) or y (end the run). You must choose one of these effects to resolve. By choosing to resolve x, you completely negate y, even if you prevent x. Snatch and Grab though is do x to do y - if you never actually do x, then you haven't paid the cost for y.

Answer 2

The official ruling from FFG is that must take (damage) is unpreventable. The damage has to happen. Prevented damage isn't taken damage. So they must suffer the damage to satisfy that constraint on the card. This is one situation where the card text supercedes the rulebook text. So for the questions.

1. No because the runner did not 'take' the damage.

2. No because the damage did not happen so the runner must then take the agenda as a -1 agenda point in their score area.

I hope this clears things up.

#Notrunner